All of today's results were as expected, all one sided affairs, results were never seriously in doubt since the first few minutes of the matches, even the Weavils! Ok the Weavils did play pretty well even when allowing for the fact that it was against the Bulldogs. Yeah I know I give them Weavils a hard time but that is cos they are Weavils and I love the idea of feeding them to piranhas especially when they let me down which was more often than not, either losing when I pick them, and bloody winning when I don't pick them!! Well today they did atone for themselves a bit, I wouldn't say all is forgiven, but it is a start. I will respect them just a wee bit more if they beat the Lions on their home turf next week!!
So I ended up with a 8-1 result this round but it was reasonably easy to pick and I really should have picked all 9, I should have known the Kangaroos would win. But in spite of my 8 points I have dropped out of the top 6, with over half of us picking all 9 teams and the worst of us picking 7 winners. I am now in 8th spot, not totally catastrophic being only 3 points from top spot, but those in the top 6 has between 42 and 44 points while I am sitting on 41 points. So being such a tight competition I will struggle to get back into the top 6. I will need a bit of luck, and though my luck this year has been better it could dessert me at the wrong time, such as next week when it will be much more difficult to pick winners, the two unbeaten teams Geelong and Essendon set for a Friday night meeting!!!
Anyway since I was in the mood for sharing bits of my football history I thought I'd share how we came to pick our teams to support, well mostly how I came to pick my teams. Starting with mother, the story she shared with me on how she chose to adopt Swan Districts as her team, it was actually a case of mistaken identity. Back in her farm days she was following the country league, and her team bore the colors black and red. I can't remember the name of the team but the colors were black and red, I assume it was a team local to where she lived. So when she moved to Perth and discovered the WAFL she decided to adopt the team whose colors are black and red. Only that she thought Swan Districts was that team!! So she had placed her emotions and energies into barracking for Swans, so when she finally realised her mistake and that Swans were indeed black and white, she was so emotionally attached to the Swans that she stuck with them.
As for me well at first I didn't like football, I thought it was such a pointless sport played by mobs of hooligans. I pretty well thought all sports were rather pointless, I really didn't like sports at all, and certainly not football!! However over the years mother's love for football grew on me, and I ended up enjoying the sport at least watching it on TV, and after a while mother took me to some WAFL matches which I did enjoy. I soon learned that all who watches football has a team to barrack for, and well in those days I was a bit of a mummy's boy so I adopted Swan District as my team just because it was mother's team. So all through my primary school years I was very much Swans Districts. This coincided with their years as cellar dwellers, in a word they were utterly hopeless, indeed so hopeless that they make Greater Western Sydney look like champions in comparison!! I was indeed the laughing stock at school and elsewhere cos of being a Swan's fan, but I was a laughing stock anyway cos of other issues so what's the difference!! Mother barracked for Swans therefore so did I.
In those days the VFL matches were shown on Sunday nights, I think one match was featured with hilights from other matches, and we all watched it. We liked the VFL better, they were more skillful, the games were better, and many WAFL players aspired to be drafted into the VFL. Furthermore many of us with favorite teams in the WAFL also had teams in the VFL. Well my choice was simple and logical, barrack for the team who were also black and white. Of course the Maggies!!! And they were doing better than Swans Districts, indeed Collingwood often played in the Finals. So I followed the Magpies more than I followed Swans. I soon learned that they were given the unflattering nick name the Colli-wobbles cos evidently they often make it into the Grand Final but never manage to win the Grand Final, indeed they haven't won since before I was born. People were telling Collingwood jokes, such as "What's the first thing Buck Rogers asked after he woke up in the 25th century?"... "Have Collingwood won a Premiership yet?".... Nevertheless I stuck up for my beloved Maggies, I so came to love them, they were MY team and that is all that mattered. It turned out that mother was an Essendon fan, on this occasion keeping true to her black and red tradition. Nevertheless on this occasion I didn't follow mother, I was a Maggie and nothing on earth was gonna to change it not even mother, I swore that my blood was black and white!! haha!! And after so long suffering the tribulations of being a Maggie supporter, our time of glory came in 1990, we finally won a Premiership!!! There were no more Colli-wobble jokes after that, well there were still some but they died natural deaths. The nastier jokes cropped up in their places, referring to the "working class" background of the suburb bearing the team's name, and the rather tainted reputations of the residents of this suburb!! Uh well such is the trials and tribulations of being a Maggie fan, it makes it all worth my while to me!!!!!
Anyway back to the WAFL.... was very much Swans Districts.... that was until my teen years, my years of rebellion, and I began to think, WHY should I be a Swan's fan just cos of mother?? It was about time I chose my own team in the WAFL. This coincided with the late 1970s, and my team of choice seemed to virtually fall on my lap. I was at a church camp, and it was during the weekend of the WAFL Grand Final, and someone had the radio on and so we were all listening to the Grand Final that Saturday afternoon of 1976. A certain team was playing very well, indeed they were winning!!! That team was the Perth Demons!! I found myself really rooting for the Demons and I really was so happy that they won the Grand Final. And so I was born a Demon supporter, and it turned out their colors are black and red. When I broke the news to mother, that was when she told me the story, that she would have been a Demon supporter but had mistakenly thought that Swans were black and red!!
Nevertheless as far as VFL goes I still remained very much Maggies supporter! My blood was still black and white, it just had a bit of red added to it on the local level!! LOL!! Then in the late 1980s when the VFL became the AFL, and the West Coast Eagles - the Weavils - were born, most of us in Western Australia who supported VFL teams began supporting the Weavils - except Maggies supporters!! We Maggies supporters are a special breed and only a very small number of us defected to the Weavils. Mother remained an Essendon supporter and she remained an Essendon supporter to her death. However it was mainly us Maggie supporters that remained true to our beloved team!! I am still a Demon fan on the WAFL level, but my heart is very much black and white in the AFL. I always have been a Maggie fan and I always will be a Maggie fan to my death!!
As for Debra, she became a South Fremantle Bulldogs fan mainly cos Colin's three children were all South's supporters and she got on well with them. Also many of her best friends were Bulldogs supporters, so the Bulldog spirit had stuck with her. I think she is a Kangaroo's fan in the AFL, not sure how she came to that one!!
Anyway Round 7 will be crucial to my chances of ever fighting my way back into the top 6. Trying to figure whether to play it safe or to go with my instincts in spite of the fact that my instincts had let me down at the crucial point this weekend!! I still would have been in the top 6 if I had picked North Melbourne. Uh well as it is said, hindsight is a good teacher but it doesn't come with a Tardis!!! So no use dwelling on this weekend just gone, I guess I shall see how I feel come Friday night, the most difficult of the matches to pick.
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